Night shelters: HC seeks progress report from govt

“For example,for the district of Surat,it is only that 28 shelters are to be built. Time period between 2011 and 2014 has been shown for constructing night shelters. No time has been shown in regard to 89 shelters. Similar is the position with regard to the city of Vadodara and Bhavnagar,” the bench of Chief Justice S J Mukhopadhaya and Justice Akil Kureishi observed.

The government does not have a formal policy on night shelters,but the Urban Development Department has shouldered the responsibility of building them after the Supreme Court ordered all the states to do so last year.

The apex court had acted on a letter written to it by Special Commissioner to the SC Harsh Mander and N C Saxena. Mander himself had visited Gujarat last month to press the government to expedite the matter.

In an interview then,he had said the state had responded “reluctantly” to the court order. “Gujarat government is one of the few who have responded in a very reluctant way,telling the Supreme Court that they will construct shelters by 2021. That has evoked a very strong direction from the SC,” he had said.

Preliminary Census 2011 reports indicate there are nearly 10,000 homeless people in Ahmedabad city alone,up from 7,000 in 2001. In the last Census,Surat had the highest number of homeless people (23,000). Preliminary findings of the Census 2011 indicate that this figure has risen to nearly 40,000.